False Alarm
by Kankokujinpoi
Summary: In which Tsukishima and Kuroo live in the same apartment building, but never cross paths. A fire alarm in the middle of the night fixes that.


Kuroo is usually a sound sleeper.

Even with Bokuto on the other side of the paper thin walls of their apartment, within a few minutes of Kuroo's head hitting his pillow he's out. And he's not 'back on' until about seven hours later. Judging from Kuroo's hairstyle one might think he indulges in his sleepy time, but ever since he was a little kid he's run on an almost perfect sleeping schedule.

He gives himself a thirty minute window to settle down and prepare for bed. He always sets his alarm in fifteen minute increments. He usually doesn't need his alarm anyway, but just to be safe...

He's never had to wake up in the middle of the night to pee, never had a nightmare jerking him from his sleep. His parents used to tell stories of Kuroo sleeping through two tsunamis and a severe lightning storm with loud booms and cracks of thunder that even a man in a coma of four days woke to the sound.

Kuroo does know how to live a little, don't think he has a bed time. If he knows he'll be awake later than usual then he tries to plan ahead, clearing any morning schedules. It has to be a really awesome party for Kuroo to throw his sleeping schedule out the window, though.

The handful of times Kuroo does wake up in the middle of the night? Well one was because of his roommate, Bokuto. He and Akaashi must have gone out for dinner, a drink, to a party, Kuroo didn't bother getting the specifics. When Kuroo was jarred from his sleep it was about two in the morning. The two were yelling at the top of their lungs at each other, incoherent sentences about some guy at whatever place they had been at earlier Kuroo assumes. It took Kuroo two hours to calm both boys, marking the worst fight the couple has had to date.

The other few times Kuroo remembers waking up are from his childhood. Once when the fire alarm in their living area died, giving one final screech to signify it needed attention. The others were from the same fire alarm, his mother had a bad habit of falling asleep with lit cigarettes in her hand.

Now, Kuroo can thank another fire alarm for interrupting his sleep. That's fire alarms, 4. Bokuto and Akaashi, 1 for those of you keeping score. Throughout the three years of living in the same two-bedroom apartment tonight is the first night Kuroo has even noticed the fire alarm in the hallway next to the stairs. It's an older alarm, one with an actual metal bell and hammer.

Luckily they live on the third floor, so the descent to the outside isn't as bad as other the other tenants that live say on floor ten. Yikes.

Kuroo tries to calm the panic swelling in his gut. He also tries to calm his flailing roommate latched onto his side.

"This is not a drill. This is not a drill." Bokuto keeps repeating, making Kuroo's panic repeat the same.

"You need to calm down, Bo. We're almost outside." Kuroo is too tired for this. It's going to take him forever to fall back asleep if he even get's the pleasure. Waking up for his 9:00am class now is near impossible.

"I need to call Akaashi, dammit I didn't bring my phone, did you?" Bokuto is yelling into Kuroo's ear so he can be heard over the alarms.

At this point he's practically giving his roommate a piggy back ride down the last few flights of stairs. Bokuto's too busy searching Kuroo's pocket's for his phone to pay attention to the people he's elbowing in the process.

"Sorry...Sorry...Sorry about that..." Kuroo keeps muttering to people. Partially for Bokuto and partially for himself. He's picking up speed down the steps, trying to make it outside as soon as possible. Not that he's worried or anything. It's to get Bokuto off his back more than anything. Literally.

It's not the nicest of nights to be standing outside in nothing but your Pjs, but it's clear enough for Kuroo to see some stars. He could do without the breeze and the chill it brings his naked calves.

Bokuto is in full panic mode. He's found Kuroo's phone (and his keys because he's prepared like that) and is calling Akaashi while swinging the key ring around his finger.

"Pick up pick up pick up Akaashi! Our building is burning!" Bokuto says loudly. A girl Kuroo recognizes from their floor starts crying, saying something about leaving her new pair of shoes inside.

"Will you stop freaking out? You're inducing panic..." Kuroo studies their apartment building, looking for any obvious signs of a fire. He doesn't even see smoke.

Kuroo bends down, leveling with the upset girl, 3B, he thinks, "I don't see anything too catastrophic yet. I'm sure if there is a fire the fire department will take care of it before it reaches our floor."

The girl stops sniffling and looks at Kuroo, shocked, "we live on the same floor?"

Kuroo's smile is frozen, trying to convince himself he isn't surrounded by idiots is becoming harder by the minute.

"I'll just go check the other side, see if I see anything..."

Their apartment building is sits on the corner of two streets. When Kuroo starts walking around the building he realizes just how big their apartment building is. He's never had a reason to go any higher than the third floor, so why bother?

He also realizes how many people actually occupy the building. There are tons of people making their way outside. The majority around his age, some older, some younger.

The majority are also flipping their shit, like Bokuto and 3B.

No bright orange flames yet. It is a little hard to see any signs of smoke, though. While his fellow apartment dwellers are standing in the middle of the street (it's in the middle of the night, they're fearing for their material lives, cut them a break), mostly wandering aimlessly, he crosses the street to get a better view of the higher floors.

"It's probably just a false alarm."

Kuroo hears the voice before he sees where it came from. He looks left then right, but there's no one around him. The voice sounded awfully close...

"I'm down here."

To Kuroo's left, sitting against the bakery across the street, is a guy wearing headphones looking extremely bored.

Kuroo wouldn't have been able to tell the guy sitting down was wearing headphones had it not been for the sharp contrast between his headphones and blonde hair. Kuroo's surprised he missed him the first time he spoke.

Even in his sleep wear the guy is too nicely dressed to be a bum on the street, just happening to catch the show. He's wearing a plain white t-shirt with a zip up sweatshirt and a pair of black basketball shorts. Standard. But the socks.

Neon dinosaurs, every shape and size.

Everything about this guy is glowing. His skin, hair, socks, even the white t-shirt he's wearing seems to illuminate. He must bleach his shirts. Which is totally against the laundry room rules.

The guy clears his throat, aware Kuroo is staring at his socks. He shifts so he's sitting cross-legged rather than elbows resting on his knees.

"False alarm, huh? You think?" Kuroo decides not to push the blonde's buttons. He's so tempting though...It. It's so tempting. The button pushing.

The blonde looks up and Kuroo has to sit down. He catches himself enough to make it look casual. To make it look like he's being polite by coming to his level, like he did with 3B. Not that the honey-brown eyes are the brightest part of the headphone donned boy. His knees did not go weak when their eyes met. His legs were tired is all.

Nice save, Kuroo.

The blonde studies Kuroo for another moment. Kuroo feels those eyes look Kuroo up and down and he's glad he was prepared enough to grab a sweatshirt as well. Hides the horrible off-white, white t-shirt he was wearing to bed and the hood protects his bed head version of his normal bed head hairstyle.

Finally, the boy shrugs, "yeah, I didn't smell any smoke or anything. If it is an actual fire it's not going to hit all the floors."

"I didn't think there was anything to worry about."

"You looked pretty worried."

Kuroo faces the boy and sees a faint smirk on his lips, Kuroo feigns ignorance. "Me? Worried? No, I'm quite familiar with fire alarms and how they work."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes! I just have a big baby for a roommate that needs to be calmed."

"I see."

"Yeah, and another girl on my floor, 3B, she's worried, too. And I'm naturally a nice person, so I thought I'd make sure everything was okay."

"A nice person."

"Yeah! We came out of the stairwell next to the alley off Sixth street, everything's clear over there."

"All clear."

"Yes! So I thought I'd check out this side, you know. Full inspection."

"So you're actually freaking out about this, but you have a good cover for it."

"Yeah! Wait.. no. No, that's not it at all."

The boy laughs.

Good thing Kuroo's already sitting. Damn knees.

"Someone probably just fell asleep with a cigarette lit or something." Kuroo fake pouts, bringing a wider smile to the boy's lips.

"Smoking is prohibited in the building."

"Yeah, well tell that to whoever is the reason we're all sitting outside at three in the morning."

Both boys laugh. Kuroo could get used to that laugh. It's not much, it borderlines a scoff rather than a laugh, but Kuroo will take either at this point.

"Tsukki! There you are. It was just a cigarette found in a trashcan in a hallway."

Kuroo smiles proudly while he hears 'Tsukki' say "lucky guess."

His smile fades when he realizes someone has just interrupted their conversation.

It's a boy, younger than Kuroo, but then again probably is the blonde now that he thinks about it. Kuroo thinks if he thought the blonde had sparkling eyes then the boy with freckles standing in front of them has the smile to match.

"Oh, hello. Are you a friend of Tsukki's?" The smile never leaves the freckled boy's face and quite frankly it's blinding Kuroo. Where 'Tsukki's' illumination gives off a low, warm, feel, this boy is a tad overwhelming for Kuroo. Or maybe it's because he feels the boy sitting next to him shine a little brighter in the company of his freckled friend.

Friend? Boyfriend? Lover? Friend. Friend sounds good. The better of the three options to Kuroo, that's for sure.

"No, not really." Tsukki says as he stands, dusting the dirt off of his shorts.

And just like that, Kuroo's lights are out. K.O.

Luckily, Kuroo recovers quickly.

"We can be friends," Kuroo stands to join the two, "we live in the same building after all."

The blonde and the freckled boy exchange a look.

"Depends."

"On?"

"Are you the one who left the cigarette in the trash?"

Kuroo's smile deepens when he notices the freckled boy, smile even brighter than before, creates some distance between himself and the two boys.

Giving privacy? Totally a friend thing to do.

Friend it is.

Kuroo lifts his hand as if he's being sworn into trial. "Not me. I was freaking out remember?"

"Right."

"Kuroo! We can go back in, let's hog an elevator and stop it halfway between floors so everyone has to walk." Bokuto yells. Does he not realize he just revealed his plan to everyone? Everyone else does. Some actually start running inside.

"Looks like your roommate was really worried."

"He bounces back pretty quickly."

"Tsukki..." Freckled friend says softly.

"Kuroo!" Bokuto yells across the street.

It's three in the morning, Kuroo is officially cold, and there's no way he's getting his seven hours of sleep. He could at least get a few more hours in and away from the cold breeze, so why won't his legs move?

Hopefully the same reason why the blonde standing in front of him isn't moving, too.

"So... I'll see you around, Tsukki?"

There's that scoffing laugh (laughing scoff?) again.

"That's 6D to you, Kuroo-san."


End file.
